Thursday, October 31, 2013

Edited by Stefan Ghidoveanu and published by Tracus Arte, the time travel anthology "Ferestrele timpului. Antologie de fictiuni speculative" (Windows of Time) will be here soon as announced on the editor's blog.

Lexicon by Max Barry – Great idea, but so much more could have been
done with it. The characters remained distant and unsympathetic, and I felt
like I was cheated of an entire scene at the end.4/5 stars

The Martian by Andy Weir – I didn’t think there was anything relevant
left to write about Mars after Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy, but Weir
proved me wrong. I fucking loved this book. I know, I know, I’m such a
geek.4/5 stars

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson – I didn’t finish this one. It turns
out Sanderson’s YA novels are not for me. Sure, I should have learned my lesson
after The Rithmatist but… So Mr. Sanderson, please go back to writing adult
stuff. It’s been proven that all teens turn into adults eventually so there’s
plenty of time to get them hooked on your books.

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich – After the disappointment brought by Steelheart, I needed something silly to cheer me up. I might have enjoyed this one more when it was first released as in twenty years ago. The way it was it gave me a few chuckles, but I surely have seen/read better humor. 2/5 stars

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

For those who wonder what NaNoWriMo is, it's short for National Novel Writing Month, also known as Nano for those used to the game. It started several years ago in the States, but since then it became international with more and more people joining in each year. The basics are simple: from 1st to 30th of November, the participants have to write 50,000 words. That would a short novel for those wondering. It also means writing an average of 1,666 words per day for 30 days in a row.

I know there's a lot of excitement about Nano out there. Several of my friends are doing it. I never have. What irks me when it comes to Nano is the emphasis put on getting the word count done. It doesn't matter what you write as long as you reach the 50,000 word mark. Well, let me tell you something: if you write with this goal in mind, then the editing process and getting something decent out of the first draft is going to be a nightmare, and you risk wasting more time doctoring the manuscript than you saved by writing it.

There are, however, two categories of people who Nano can be useful for. First, there are those who have problems with finishing things. It shows them it can be done. I'm not one of them as I never had this problem. Then, there are those who plot in advance every scene in the story. I don't doubt it works great for them, but if I have everything figured out, it takes the fun out of the writing process for me. If there are no surprises on the way and I only have to type the words, then it turns into work for me. And writing is not work, it's entertaining and fun and, sometimes, even magical.

So this is what I'm going to do this November--my own version of Nano. I'm done with The Impaler Legacy series, actually I finished the final draft of Order Restored at the end of June and I have been sort of vacationing since, but let's not dwell on that. It's time to start a new project (you'll want to have something else to read after you finish The Impaler Legacy, right?), and since I haven't written any serious sci fi in way too long, this is me going back to basics. The world I'm creating is rich and colorful, but in the same time dark and complex, so I still have to decide if it's going to be a novella or a short novel. I have a whole cast of characters who all deserve to have their story told. Also, I know what happens in the first fifteen scenes of the story, but I don't feel like I reached the middle point yet so we'll see.

I usually write 1,000 words per day except for the weekends. This time, the exception I'll make for Nano is that I'll try to write during the weekends too. This will be my goal, not 50k. It means that at the end of November I'll have 30k. Even if I reach this goal or not, the plan is to have the first draft done by the end of the year. And then I have another fun story to write, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Of course, it means I'm postponing again finishing the fantasy trilogy when I should have written book 2 this year. No harm done, I guess, since I haven't released book 1 yet. Otherwise, the readers would have gotten upset if they had to wait such a long time. Then there's the space opera saga I keep mentioning... Well, they'll all come when the time is right.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Because it's Sunday - and Sundays are supposed to be filled with good things, right? :) - I'm going to share with you a few 5 star reviews.

The Impaler's Revenge - Not just your average vampire story!

"Just as a sidenote, you do not have to like vampires to read this novel -
but you don't have to hate them either. So just disregard the current
hype and read this because it is a well written story, not because it
contains vampires!" - Yes! :D
Read the rest here.

A Victory that Counts - An interesting plot with twists and turns makes for a must read!

"In this warlike setting, which is undoubtedly a lot grittier than the
first novella, there are some expected fight scenes, even including
torture and slaughter, yet it never gets too gruesome for the squeamish
ones amongst us." - Yep.

Read the review here.
Oh, and if you want a free copy of Blue Moon Café Series, today is the last day when you can enter the LibraryThing Giveaway. ;)

In other news, I had the two free short stories in The Impaler Legacy series, Sweet Surrender and Casualties of War, uploaded to Smashwords and Amazon. They're still free on Smashwords, but Amazon is fussy about it so I need your help to make them free there to.

It's easy. All you have to do is login to Amazon, go to the ebooks' pages, paste the Smashwords link in the 'tell us about a lower price' field, and set the price and cost to 0. Here are the links:

Monday, October 21, 2013

I wanted to upload a book to my Kindle last week, but Calibre refused to connect to the device. After the initial moment of panic, I opened the drive to see what was wrong. Instead of the usual directory structure, I found only shortcuts to the top folders and files, and they of course led nowhere.

It wasn't my first encounter with the shortcut virus, so I knew my files weren't lost but only hidden. I also knew how to fix it for a flash drive (backup the files + quick format), but I wasn't so sure it would work the same for a Kinde and I didn't want to risk and ruin it.

After wasting an entire weekend browsing the internet in search of a solution and finding only posts on how to unhide the files, I figured it out by myself and decided to write a blog post about it. Maybe this will help someone else too.The Shortcut Virus

Source: It usually comes with an infected flash drive.

Behavior: Once your PC is infected, whenever you connect a flash drive, it infects the flash drive too. Shortcuts to the top folders and files are created, and the original files and folders are hidden. You can still access the files if you set Windows Explorer or Total Commander to show the hidden files, but it's annoying, and of course the flash drive is still infected.

Solution: At the time I'm writing this post, the only free online antivirus able to detect it is Karpesky. I tried four others and no luck.

1. The first thing you need to do is clean your PC so download Karpersky Virus Removal Tool (it asks for your e-mail address, but other than that it's free) and run it. It's enough to do a scan of the C: drive. The virus (VBS/Kryptik.I trojan) is a vbs file and it hides in
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Temp\
C:\Documents and Settings\user\Start Menu\Programs\
When the antivirus finds it, choose to delete it.

2. Do the same thing for all of the infected flash drives (it turned out we had three in the house, plus the Kindle).

3. Next, it's time to fix the directory structure of the flash drive.
Delete all shortcuts (extension lnk).
There's a DOS command for unhiding files (attrib -h -r -s /s /d drive_letter:\*.*), but I'm lazy and prefer to use Total Commander. The shareware version is perfectly functional, and it's a better file manager than Windows Explorer.
Set it to display hidden files (Configuration - Options - Display - Show hidden/system files).
Select all the files from the flash drive and unhide them (File - Change attributes - deselect Archive, Read-only, Hidden, System).

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

With the Halloween approaching, how about reading some shapeshifter stories to set you in the mood? Blue Moon Cafe Series: Where Shifters Meet for Drinks is my best-seller so far, and I'm giving away 25 copies through a LibraryThing giveaway. You have two weeks to request a copy.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

During the month of October, Evolution: Vol. 2 (A Short Story Collection) is on sale for only $0.99. It includes my short story Beneath the Skin, so hurry up and get it before the price goes back up to $4.99.